Summary

Part I: “Before the Taliban”

Part I opens with a traditional Pashto poem that says it’s better for someone to be remembered as dying honorably than having been a coward.

Prologue, Chapters 1 and 2

The Prologue opens with Malala’s words that her country was “created at midnight” and that she almost died “just after midday.” She says a year has passed since the day she left for school for the final time. She says she was shot by a member of the Taliban and flown from Pakistan while she was unconscious. Some people believe she will never return to her homeland though she hopes this isn’t true. Malala says she and her classmates spend their days studying at the Khushal School. However, there is no longer a sign declaring the building is a school. The girls attend in...